Parks & wrecks: Carlos Almaraz @ LACMA
The ‘Los Four’ exhibition at Los Angeles County Art Museum in 1974 put the local art establishment on notice that a thriving scene was taking place in East Los Angeles and elsewhere in the Southland. The Chicano art renaissance was represented by four artists — Carlos Almaraz, Beto de la Rocha, Frank Romero and Gilbert ...
Jazz singer Jeri Southern, appreciated
There were other female jazz pianists who also sang in the 1950s, but none shared Jeri Southern’s formidable pianistic technique, vocal individuality, and unerring choice of good material. She sang the most bittersweet love songs in the most intimate manner. And few could inspire the nightclub reveries Southern conjured—of melancholy, infatuation, optimism, idolatry, disconsolation, and ...
Burlesque dancer Rosie Mitchell remembered
arts•meme‘s Kirk Silsbee published this obit/honoring of stripper Rosie Mitchell this week in the L.A. Weekly. In an excerpt of Silsbee’s story, Mitchell, also known as Novita, shared Los Angeles memories: Mitchell met Lenny Bruce and his stripper wife, Honey, on the burly circuit. With her first husband, drummer Buddy Greve, Mitchell doubled dated with ...
Where they live: SoCal artists draw at Liz’s 2
Sixth and La Brea is populated with vintage clothing stores, trendy furniture outlets and hip boutique concerns. Liz’s Antique Hardware, at 453 South, isn’t much to look at from the outside. Inside it’s not much better. The store is filled with ancient doors, old light fixtures, bins of tarnished doorknobs, decorative heating grates. Liz Gordon ...
Billie Holiday in Los Angeles: the blues were brewing 2
Billie Holiday and her dog Mister, New York, c. June 1946, William P. Gottleib One of the greatest jazz singers who ever lived had a small voice, never more than 15 notes at her disposal, and recorded many throwaway tunes. But Billie Holiday (1915-1959) was great by virtue of her sure-footed musical gifts: behind-the-beat phrasing, ...